for, I protest, her frown might kill me.
ROSALIND By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now
I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on
disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant
it.
ORLANDO Then love me, Rosalind.
ROSALIND Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.
ORLANDO And wilt thou have me?
ROSALIND Ay, and twenty such.
ORLANDO What sayest thou?
ROSALIND Are you not good?
ORLANDO I hope so.
ROSALIND Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?
ORLANDO Pray thee, marry us.
CELIA I cannot say the words.
ROSALIND You must begin, ‘Will you, Orlando–‘
CELIA Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
ORLANDO I will.
ROSALIND Ay, but when?
ORLANDO Why now; as fast as she can marry us.
ROSALIND Then you must say ‘I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.’
ORLANDO I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
ROSALIND I might ask you for your commission; but I do take
thee, Orlando, for my husband: there’s a girl goes
before the priest; and certainly a woman’s thought
runs before her actions.
ORLANDO So do all thoughts; they are winged.
ROSALIND Now tell me how long you would have her after you
have possessed her.
ORLANDO For ever and a day.
ROSALIND Say ‘a day,’ without the ‘ever.’ No, no, Orlando;
men are April when they woo, December when they wed:
maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous
of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more
new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana
in the fountain, and I will do that when you are
disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and
that when thou art inclined to sleep.
ORLANDO But will my Rosalind do so?
ROSALIND By my life, she will do as I do.
ORLANDO O, but she is wise.
ROSALIND Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the
wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman’s
wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and
’twill out at the key-hole; stop that, ’twill fly
with the smoke out at the chimney.
ORLANDO A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say
‘Wit, whither wilt?’
ROSALIND Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met
your wife’s wit going to your neighbour’s bed.
ORLANDO And what wit could wit have to excuse that?
ROSALIND Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall
never take her without her answer, unless you take
her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot
make her fault her husband’s occasion, let her
never nurse her child herself, for she will breed
it like a fool!
ORLANDO For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.
ROSALIND Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.
ORLANDO I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o’clock I
will be with thee again.
ROSALIND Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you
would prove: my friends told me as much, and I
thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours
won me: ’tis but one cast away, and so, come,
death! Two o’clock is your hour?
ORLANDO Ay, sweet Rosalind.
ROSALIND By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend
me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous,
if you break one jot of your promise or come one
minute behind your hour, I will think you the most
pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover
and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that
may be chosen out of the gross band of the
unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep
your promise.
ORLANDO With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
Rosalind: so adieu.
ROSALIND Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
offenders, and let Time try: adieu.
Exit ORLANDO
CELIA You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:
we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your
head, and show the world what the bird hath done to
her own nest.
ROSALIND O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
bottom, like the bay of Portugal.
CELIA Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour
affection in, it runs out.
ROSALIND No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot
of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,
that blind rascally boy that abuses every one’s eyes
because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out
of the sight of Orlando: I’ll go find a shadow and
sigh till he come.
CELIA And I’ll sleep.
Exeunt
Scene 2
The forest.
Enter JAQUES, Lords, and Foresters
JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer?
A Lord Sir, it was I.
JAQUES Let’s present him to the duke, like a Roman
conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer’s
horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. Have
you no song, forester, for this purpose?
Forester Yes, sir.
JAQUES Sing it: ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it
make noise enough.
SONG.
Forester What shall he have that kill’d the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home;
The rest shall bear this burden
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
It was a crest ere thou wast born:
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it:
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.
Exeunt
Scene 3
The forest.
Enter ROSALIND and CELIA
ROSALIND How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? and
here much Orlando!
CELIA I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he
hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to
sleep. Look, who comes here.
Enter SILVIUS
SILVIUS My errand is to you, fair youth;
My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
I know not the contents; but, as I guess
By the stern brow and waspish action
Which she did use as she was writing of it,
It bears an angry tenor: pardon me:
I am but as a guiltless messenger.
ROSALIND Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phoenix. ‘Od’s my will!
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt:
Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
This is a letter of your own device.
SILVIUS No, I protest, I know not the contents:
Phebe did write it.
ROSALIND Come, come, you are a fool
And turn’d into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand.
A freestone-colour’d hand; I verily did think
That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands:
She has a huswife’s hand; but that’s no matter:
I say she never did invent this letter;
This is a man’s invention and his hand.
SILVIUS Sure, it is hers.
ROSALIND Why, ’tis a boisterous and a cruel style.
A style for-challengers; why, she defies me,
Like Turk to Christian: women’s gentle brain
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention
Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?
SILVIUS So please you, for I never heard it yet;
Yet heard too much of Phebe’s cruelty.
ROSALIND She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
Reads
Art thou god to shepherd turn’d,
That a maiden’s heart hath burn’d?
Can a woman rail thus?
SILVIUS Call you this railing?
ROSALIND [Reads]
Why, thy godhead laid apart,
Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?
Did you ever hear such railing?
Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
That could do no vengeance to me.
Meaning me a beast.
If the scorn of your bright eyne
Have power to raise such love in mine,
Alack, in me what strange effect
Would they work in mild aspect!
Whiles you chid me, I did love;
How then might your prayers move!
He that brings this love to thee
Little knows this love in me:
And by him seal up thy mind;
Whether that thy youth and kind
Will the faithful offer take
Of me and all that I can make;
Or else by him my love deny,